MySQL includes character set support that enables you to store data
using a variety of character sets and perform comparisons according
to a variety of collations. You can specify character sets at the
server, database, table, and column level. MySQL supports the use of
character sets for the MyISAM,
MEMORY, NDBCluster, and
InnoDB storage engines.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

What are character sets and collations?

The multiple-level default system for character set assignment

Syntax for specifying character sets and collations

Affected functions and operations

Unicode support

The character sets and collations that are available, with notes

Character set issues affect data storage, but also communication
between client programs and the MySQL server. If you want the client
program to communicate with the server using a character set
different from the default, you'll need to indicate which one. For
example, to use the utf8 Unicode character set,
issue this statement after connecting to the server: